


Infinity // Eternity

by Acantha_Echo



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale inspired, M/M, Minor Character Death, Past Experimentation, Past Torture, Remy was dead to begin with, Virgil is in a bad mental space, Werebears, as dead as a doornail, but remy is dead, character death occurs pre story, he ain't getting any deader, it isn't discussed in detail, or shown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21906391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acantha_Echo/pseuds/Acantha_Echo
Summary: “To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour” - Auguries of Innocence, William Blake.A fairy tale in two parts.(this isn’t a fairy tale, Virgil warns him once.It isn’t going to have a happy ending.Being right doesn’t make him feel better.)
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Hints at possible past Virgil Sanders/Remy Sanders
Comments: 18
Kudos: 53





	1. Infinity in the palm of your hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GilbyJuly4th](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GilbyJuly4th/gifts).



> Hello! Hello! Welcome to my gift for Gilby-the-grad-student over at sanderssides-secretsanta on tumblr. Happy holidays!
> 
> This story only features Virgil and Roman, with the briefest mention of Remy. Who, I repeat. Is dead. In case you missed the tags. It also has werebears because... well, I just wanted supernatural bears instead of wolves.
> 
> Sooo... I’m back with some of my favourite tropes. Twisting fairy tale themes and poetry. 
> 
> And yes, it is in two parts, because I can’t keep to word limits for toffee. We all know this, let’s move on! Chapter two will be out before the end of the year. Comments and Kudos would be greatly appreciated. 
> 
> Tumblr gonna tumblr, come find me at @theeternalspace

** **

### Infinity in the Palm of your Hand

** **

Roman is no Goldilocks.

Obviously, Virgil knows this. Roman’s hair is a rich dark red for one. In the stories, Goldilocks enters, eats, breaks shit, sleeps and then when the three bears show up, she runs away, never to be seen again by bears who were just minding their own business in the first place. Score one for the bears. Red-Rose then. Dark and outgoing, with a smile that blinds and a love for the outdoors which leads him carelessly into storms and danger. Yet he knows such storms won’t stop Roman, mere moments and he knows he is just too much of a survivor - too much everything - to let a storm keep him indoors. 

Virgil finds him in the rain. 

Pounding his hands against the closed door to Virgil’s cabin. He’s built it deep in the forest so that nobody will ever find him and yet here is a human. All alone, slapping his hands against the heavy wood and begging to be let in. Shouting some stupid story about going for a walk and getting lost, only for the bad weather to trap him. Scent alerts him to the intruder in his forest long before the man reaches his home, long enough for Virgil to slip out a window and circle around to come upon him from the back. 

This boy - Roman, he will cheerfully tell him later, as if names are something to casually thrown about like falling leaves - doesn’t appear to fear the woods, only the dangers the cold and wet will bring his weak mortal form. It will take Virgil a lot longer to use the name out loud. Even longer to offer his own up. All that is for later. Right now, all Virgil can think about is the inescapable truth of this moment. 

They have forgotten him.

A monster lurks in the forest, a creature of tooth and claw. One that had hunted their settlement on the orders of his master. It has been mere decades since the leash snapped and they have forgotten him. Or have they? For a moment, Virgil feels a familiar panic. The human is bait, is a trap. The scientists have finally tracked him down and they are going to drag him back there, they are going to study what he can do. Virgil will die first. 

This human should die but he is the first human Virgil has seen in years. The first one who can tell him anything of what is happening in the world beyond the trees. His home is his prison, his isolation his punishment. Far away from the village, from the humans, from the memories of all the sins he committed against them. Their blood is on his hands, and no matter how many storms he wanders in, the rain will never wash that away. It’s his penance, although he knows that no amount of regret or isolation can ever wipe his slate clean. The red builds up rather than decreases. 

Perhaps it is the knowledge of all his failures that finally inspires Virgil to speak rather than attack, to cause this intruder to spin around to face him. Roman falls half unconscious in his arms, sagging bodily into him. Virgil cannot help but catch him, carry him into his home and save his life. Warm him by the fire, cook a meal and plan the best way to get the human home as quickly as he can. Virgil is a monster but even he will not kill the wounded beast that crawls to his feet for shelter. 

Barely conscious, shuffling halfheartedly towards the fire, drawn by the heat more than any deliberate thought. A drowned rat rather than a human. 

Still more vibrant than Virgil has been. He is still life in all its glory. Like Snow-White and Red-Rose, sisters who met a bear and were not afraid. A bear who was a prince under it all, waiting for the chance to break his curse, shunned by everyone but those girls.

He’s no prince. There is nothing under his bearskin but more of the same, more animal and monster, more rage, always more, more, more. There is no curse to break, no redemption for the bear who lives alone and will one day die alone, forgotten. There is no possibility for any redemption anyway, and so no need for a prince to enter his life.

Virgil knows all this. He knows where this path will lead them both, and he knows it will only bring them pain.

Yet Roman curls up on his bed as though it isn't too hard or too soft. As if he’s Goldilocks after all.

(then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I - 

No, that’s the Big Bad Wolf.

Is there a Big Bad Bear?

It's only a fairy tale if he is the villain.

He doesn't deserve any other ending.)

When Roman leaves, he tries not to mourn the absence of the other. Virgil had forgotten what it felt like to have company again, for someone to look at him and see more than a body to use or abuse. It had felt a little, as though when the human had looked at him, Roman saw... he saw - well, he didn’t see _him_ , Roman couldn’t actually see Virgil because Roman had looked at him and smiled. The kind of smile that monsters don't get. 

It had felt as if Roman had seen something good in him and as much as that makes Virgil want to laugh, there is a certain wistfulness about the idea. To be good enough for a smile, it was something the man he had once been would have laughed about. But then that man had walked the edge of savagery, had caused the ruin of countless men and women, had obeyed the orders of harsher, crueller people. Who killed because it was all he had been trained to do, all that he knew to do. More beast than man. 

Roman would have been a joke that he would have swatted aside like a bug if he had even bothered to notice the human at all. That Virgil would never have even known what he missed. That Virgil would have carried on the cycle, would have kept losing himself to the full moon, month after month.

In the end though, it doesn’t matter what he did or didn’t see because Roman is gone, back to his life, to his world and that is a world so far removed from his own. He couldn’t enter it, even if he wants to. Virgil doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to be surrounded by that many people, that many hungry eyes and the overpowering sounds that so many lives create. A din which made him feel sick to his stomach at just the thought of it, a pain which feels heavier now he is one of that number. 

One visit and he finds himself craving contact. Contact that will never happen again.

And then - Roman comes back. Time and time again. With a picnic, with a book he thinks Virgil might like, with nothing but his smile and the sun on his face.

(this isn’t a hotel he tells Roman.

Virgil had meant he couldn't come and go as he pleases.

He seems to take it to mean that now he is here in Virgil’s life, he doesn't have to leave.)

The funny thing is, he has never hated Roman. Not once. His default is hate. Hates the scientists for what they had done to him, not just the experiments which were little better than torture but the decades of silence, with only his thoughts for company and that was torture. Hates how it took being rescued by another werebear before he could even put a name to what he is. Hates that his whole life has been stolen from him, always a puppet dancing to someone else's whims. 

He hates the hunters that came after. Hates them for murdering his friend. Hates them for being the first blood he sheds since taking a name that is his own.

Hates the world because nothing is ever going to change and he is stuck here alone and it is only because he has started talking to someone again that Virgil even realises how much he hates being alone all the time.

Hates because it is all he knows how to do anymore.

It isn't until Roman has been in his life for a while that Virgil looks back and realises he slipped in under the radar and there had been a lack of hate. At first, it had been fear. A cold, all encompassing fear that had wrapped itself tightly around his heart and squeezed. That changed in the end, fading to a dull ache and a variety of other emotions flooded to take its place. Confusion. Low level annoyance for sure but buzzing under all of that... something else. Something Virgil has trouble putting a word to because it is so alien to his nature. A... a...

A warmth that curled through him. And pride, pride that Roman has never shown any fear towards him. Virgil’s brave little human and some part of him knows how dangerous that is, the way in which his bear side has already laid claim to Roman. He knows the sensible thing to do is to cut off all contact now. 

Every second Virgil spends time with his human just lets the knives slide in deeper, their joined life blood pooling around them. Roman has nothing to look forward to with him but the unhappy ending because life isn't fair, it doesn’t reward the good or save the bad, he couldn't be made good just because Roman wanted it. Life was cold and cruel and more often than not saw nothing wrong in sticking fingers into open wounds, prodding, poking, stretching thin sanity and life. This thing, whatever it is, has to stop. After all just because Virgil might want something, doesn’t mean he should have it. 

(he thinks he hates Remy for - for -

For saving him

For dying for him 

For thinking he was worth saving

For leaving him here alone

For making him feel anything in the first place.)

Just once, he considers burning the cabin to the ground. It would be so easy to do and it wouldn’t be the first time Virgil has let the cleansing brutal beauty of fire to its work. A few sparks in the right places, a little time and the wooden cabin would go up in roaring flames. A pyre to what could have been until nothing was left but the ghosts of a possibility. There is nothing inside the building that he is overly attached to, nothing Virgil couldn't recreate a few miles away, build another cabin and start again. Virgil has always been pretty good at keeping his possessions light, constantly on the move - constantly running, running because he is a coward, because he can't look behind him, can't go back to that, to the ghosts of either his sins or his friend. One strike of a match to set the whole chain tumbling down. No more worry that someone else might notice Virgil living here, no more worrying that people might follow Roman, that he might lead the enemy right to his door. No more Roman -

Thoughts of burning the cabin stutter to a stop at that. The whole point of the plan was to wipe the slate clean, so he can't get him caught. It's hard to do that without cutting Roman out of his life. It will hurt him - it will hurt him too, but that is never the point - and Virgil finds he doesn't want to hurt Roman. The mere idea of something taking that smile off his features is more than either the bear or man side of him can handle. To imagine the smile wavering because of something he did... It is breaking his heart, it is breaking his heart and Virgil thought that that organ had shattered into harmless pieces long ago. 

It is disconcerting to realise the muscle hasn’t atrophied away from lack of use through all the long years and instead is as hot and as alive as anything. Even the hate Virgil has felt over the years has never felt like this, never made his chest ache in a way that the idea of hurting Roman does. It's not necessarily a good feeling, and the thoughts which pool around his mind like fresh blood are raw, born out a new and unexpected wound.

Virgil will kill to make sure that smile never wavers. He will do what he has always done. He will drown the whole world in blood is that is what it takes in order to protect Roman and his happiness. The thought is wild, a wounded animal clawing in the back of his mind just begging to be let free. It's the first time Virgil realises he will kill for Roman. Not the last. 

(he thinks he loved Remy once upon a time.)

There are times too, when Virgil thinks about really telling him some of the things he has done. In clinical, excruciating detail about bodies he has left broken in his wake. About the lives he has ruined - why Grandma, what big _arms_ you have - and worse of all, how Virgil had enjoyed it at the time. It was all Virgil had been built for, and he had never thought to question it, had simply accepted it. Someone points, and he moves, a weapon created for one purpose. Everyone in his life has been like that, always looking for ways in which to use him. Even Remy hadn't been wholly selfless when it came to their friendship, always half an eye on what he could get out of it. 

Not that Virgil blames him for that, Remy at least was kind, offered something in return instead of just tugging harshly on the leash. And in the end, Remy gave his life to the misguided idea that Virgil is a life worth preserving.

The world is full of people just waiting to take and take. The world that Virgil knows at least is one of the scientists, experiments, hunters and Virgil has no reason to believe that this brave new world is any different. Roman should know who he is smiling at, who he is trusting his back to and how the Big Bad Wolf will hurt him worse than he can ever imagine. 

Of course, he actually never tells Roman. Virgil tries to convince himself it's because he doesn't want to be the one to wreck that innocence he wears like a cloak around his shoulders but Virgil knows it's a lie - why Grandma, what big _eyes_ you have - and normally he has no time for lies. Roman can't keep doing this to him, smiling and looking and understanding. As though all the broken pieces in him are okay, as if he doesn't want to press Virgil to a shape of his own choosing but instead can simply let it be. 

It feels good and oh so bad at the same time, something being rubbed raw in the back of his mind, grating on a nerve. It leaves Virgil permanently on edge, as though he is constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the blood red haired to turn out to be just like everyone else. Until then, Virgil pretends he isn't waiting for his little red riding hood to pull the hood down and allows himself to maybe enjoy it. Just a little. Just while he can.

He knows it won't last. 

Because in reality, Virgil needs Roman not to hate him. More than that, he needs those eyes on him. Needs the kindness. The easy affection and belief offered is like a drug and he needs to pretend there is something more to him than the violence - why Grandma, what big _teeth_ you have - and Virgil has to hide away that animalistic desire to kill to protect Roman, to become the monster once more. Roman cannot see, he can never see how the bear will happily drown the world in blood for him because Virgil knows he will hate it. He will hate Virgil and that will hurt him more than anything, more than he thought it was possible to hurt. Being denied Roman’s smile will break him, he knows it down to his core.

He wonders when he became so weak, or if he has been this fragile all along.

(in his dreams he is killing Roman.

Over and over, a different method each time.

And always behind him, that voice he can't shift, the scientists who held his leash for decades. 

Smooth honey, sweet poison of his past as they purr in approval.

He drives the knife in deeper. 

He’s always needed to belong to someone.)

The first time Roman touches him with purpose, he can’t help but flinch. Virgil had been in control of himself before then, with only the slightest tense of muscles whenever Roman brushed up against him in passing, an accidental contact. And he brushes up against him a lot - fingers catching his skin when Virgil hands him something, bumping into Virgil as Roman slips past, a tug on his shirt as warm fingers press against him when the human needs to get his attention. 

This time is different. 

There is an intent behind the motion that Virgil can’t quite understand. It isn’t harsh, isn’t the promise of blows and pain if he disobeys but Roman touches and in that moment - a second, an eternity - Virgil is all the way back in that small, bright, white, room. Back in a world of pain and endless tests where he never understood the rules or the purpose only that everything he did was wrong. Everything invited pain, action or inaction. Everything hurts, his body is on fire and Virgil has forgotten how to breathe. Lungs burn with the rest of him and he feels - Virgil feels everything and it is far too much.

The moment of eternity passes. 

Virgil is back in his cabin, hand carved table pressing into the small of his back. Virgil doesn’t remember physically moving, can’t recall the active thoughts that made him more than flinch but cross a whole room in a bid to escape an innocent touch. Roman watches him as though he’s given some new piece of a puzzle. As if his freak out wasn’t something to be embarrassed about and not for the first time Virgil wishes he understood what went on in that beautiful head of his. Virgil was simple. Virgil knew what he wanted, what he liked, what he didn’t like and he was rarely shy about expressing himself one way or another, although his words were sparse, as though there was only so many in him and he had to ration them out to get through the day. 

It’s better this way. Better to hold his words in reserve, to guard them and hold himself taunt. Hold himself closed off as best he can. If he lets his thoughts out, if he actually speaks any of the horrors that whirl around his mind that Virgil doesn’t believe he would stop until the well is dry. It is a frightening thought, to lose control. To let Roman see into all the ruined edges.

Roman, on the other hand, talks a lot. Without shame, without hesitation. He lets all the thoughts that pass through him escape. He shares everything he is and Virgil can only marvel at it. There is no end to his stream. No possibility of worry, of any of the doubts that plague Virgil it seems.

So many words, a hymn of sound that rose and broke in gentle waves around him but there was so much more unsaid, music in the silence between the words, a code that he can’t quite understand. Something is happening now, some conversation he can feel slipping silently between his fingers as they look at each other, the human slowly closing the gap he had unwittingly created.

Clear brown eyes stare up at him and Roman reaches out again. For a moment, Virgil thinks he sees pity in those warm eyes. The one emotion Virgil has never wanted from him and he will take any amount of hate or disdain over _pity_. It passes before he can decide if he is right or not, or if he is simply reading too much into things. It passes before his brain can recoil, some part of him trusting that it wasn't pity. It can't be pity, he wouldn't be that cruel. Not his Roman. 

Fingers brush against his own in silent greeting, a tender motion. Gentle but confident, a second of waiting before pressing on. It's more than a greeting now, that strange purpose is back as Roman’s fingers entwine with his own, panic threatening to overwhelm Virgil once more, everything spiralling and screaming out of control. He breathes in. Breathes out. Thinks of deep and dark woods, the endless path that winds through it. Thinks of the smell of damp earth after a storm. Thinks of the sound of Roman’s laugh.

The moment of eternity passes.

He relaxes. Just a fraction, a shift of shoulders dropping but it's enough to let the fear start to seep away, to feel the moment as it actually is over the memory of what it had once been. Its enough to reward him with a brilliant smile, unrestrained joy on Roman’s face at the single act. He is beyond happy and that, in turn, makes him feel happy, easily washing away the last fragments of fear.

His hand is warm. So perfect against the rough edges of his own, slotting smoothly into place, as if it belongs there.

(bring me the heart of Snow White, commands the Queen.

As you wish, whispers the Huntsman.

Roman is that Snow White, Red Rose, Goldilocks and all the others.

He’s the Big Bad Wolf, the Huntsman. 

But the Huntsman isn’t the villain.

If he’s not the villain, what is his role anymore?)

Roman is always so happy, so cheerful. Nothing can dampen his spirits and there are times when Virgil is envious of that. There are plenty of times when it pisses him off too, the way in which no matter what he or the world might say or do, Roman keeps on smiling. Through any bad day, through any snarled response from Virgil. When something bad happens, it only prompts Roman to offer a charming smile and a wholly impracticable suggestion to how to fix it. As though Virgil can be fixed. As if his bear skin really is just that, and there might be a prince under it all after all. 

Not that he’s told Roman about his bear skin. Not that he ever will. 

Endless smiles, as addictive as they are, also grate on his nerves at times. Nobody can be that cheerful, that positive. Life was cruel and constant, a grinding sensation that just kept demanding more and more, never happy with what it took. His - not his, never his - Roman takes it all without a blink, he smiles and doesn't seem to be affected.

Except Roman is his. And has been for a long time. Perhaps forever? From human, to his human, and Roman to his Roman. The bear has claimed him and it has simply taken Virgil this long to catch up. It is easier to accept it in abstract. To think of it as though the knowledge is just another fairy tale. The Big Bad Wolf doesn’t want to eat Little Red Riding Hood - the need which burns in the veins of this bear is not the hunger for food, but for something that still shuns a name.

Sometimes, Virgil wants to shake him and point out all the ways in which the world sucks, how this world is made up of lies and trickery. How blind they all are. Monsters of all sorts lurk in the world. Some are like him. Fairy tale beasts made flesh. Creatures of sorrow and regret and red so rich you could drown in it.

It’s the ones that are mortal which are the worse though. The ones that age, sicken and die like all the others of their kind. The ones that hold more power than they have any right too. The ones that cause endless suffering in the name of science or their morality. 

Once, he asks how Roman can possibly remain calm in the face of everything. How can he get back up time after time again? How can every set back just makes him blink and then smile? Roman manages to keep on going as though the bad news was good. And oh, Roman just smiles that smile of his, the one like bubbles of champagne brushing against your throat. It is the one that twists Virgil up in knots that he both loves and hates at the same time. Despite everything Virgil knows about the world, he finds himself wanting to believe in Roman’s version of the world. 

Despite the reality that is screaming at them both, the endless ways in which the world will chew them both up and spit out their remains - he wants to believe. 

Virgil doesn't of course. 

His very soul has been burnt raw by his life. All the body blows have had their effect and Virgil sees the world for what it is. A blade, just waiting for its chance to impale you. Once bitten, twice shy? Many times beaten and experimented on, another time wary. Virgil isn’t going to risk showing his weak underbelly to such a world once more. He ignores the fact that Roman is nothing but a weakness. Virgil has gotten pretty good at ignoring truths when it comes to his human.

Roman simply insists it easier to be happy, to not give in to negative feelings. There is no point in being sad, nothing good can come of it and so Roman simply remains happy, as though it's that easy. As though there is some switch in the world that he can just press. Boom. Happy. It can’t be that simple. Roman isn’t done explaining and Virgil finds himself leaning forward all the more, desperate to understand this new magic. 

There is just more good in his life, he claims, and so he focuses on that, smile never faltering. Roman looks at Virgil and promises that there are things in the world that make everything else worthwhile. 

He still doesn't understand.

(he is in free fall.

He’s been in free fall since Roman held his hand.

_Little pig, little pig, let me come in._

No, he's been in free fall long before that and the ground is coming up fast.

_Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin._

This is going to hurt.)


	2. Eternity in an Hour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with me guys, I know this is slightly different to my usual work but I hope you enjoy it. Also, I finished a story! Who would have thunk.
> 
> Comments and Kudos to let me know what you think would be lovely. Tumblr gonna tumblr! Check me out @theeternalspace

** **

### Eternity in an Hour

** **

If anything, the fact that it takes Roman as long as he does to invite him to the village is the only surprising part of finding himself walking down one of the quiet streets. Virgil has long ago resigned himself to the fact that he can't refuse him anything and Virgil though Roman knew that. He would kill or die for Roman. He would rip out his own heart and hand it to him if his human smiled and asked nicely enough so getting him to visit somewhere is small potatoes. All he has to do is ask, the knowledge unspoken between them, like so many of the conversations they don’t have.

It still takes Roman a very long time to ask. 

They dance around the subject. Virgil often walks with Roman to the edge of the forest. He lurks in the shadows of the trees, watching as the other part of him leaves to return to the human settlement. 

Time after time, Virgil opens his mouth only to close it again without a word, unable to offer. The forest is dangerous, and that is one of the reasons why he insists on walking with him to the edge of his territory. He has to keep Roman safe in the only way he knows how and no matter how much some part of him yearns to follow him all the way home, Virgil just can’t. He isn’t part of Roman’s world which is human and mundane and so very perfect. He is an exile from any sort of real life, a ghost who cannot be seen, who cannot touch Roman past the trees. 

Time after time, Roman lingers on that invisible boundary, waiting for him to offer perhaps. Or unwilling to end their time together perhaps, Or just admiring the view perhaps. Virgil doesn’t understand how his mind works and gradually he is coming to accept that. 

All he knows is that Roman lingers, he remains silent and tries to shake the feeling that he is doing something wrong here. Not doing something is still doing it wrong, a sin of omission but he can’t bring himself to offer. The words feel heavier than any other Virgil might speak, the idea of being seen, of being noticed and connected to him. It's more than just his normal paranoia, more than fear for himself or distrust and dislike of the townsfolk. Its fear for Roman as well, a fear that someone will see them together and act accordingly.

When Roman finally does ask, all Virgil can do is nod wordlessly. He adopts a grumpy expression, emotions midway between relief that he can make sure he is safe all the way home and terror of having to walk the streets and be seen. At least it comes with the warmth of a few more seconds with Roman, of feeling the human close by. His bear is always more settled when he is close by. The dark bangs which fall artfully over his eyes give him a few precious seconds of delaying the inevitable while he plays with them, trying to rearrange them to his liking. It doesn’t save him from actually having to take that first step.

With a deep breath, Virgil finally steps over the invisible line that separates the forest he knows and the village he doesn’t. 

The world doesn’t end. There are no screams or howls, no alarms blaring and scientists popping up from behind rocks. There is no trap, no red cloak falling to the ground and a wolf under the mask. Instead it is simply a smile, a forest fire of warmth rushing through him at the sight of it. There is nothing to fear here beyond anything the woods might offer. For the first time out of danger, Virgil is the one to reach out first, to take Roman’s hand in his own, a surprisingly gentle squeeze his only hint of nerves. 

(Virgil is going to be the death of Roman.)

They turn left, a short cut through a small path and out into a quiet street, minutes away from the theater where he works as a director slash costume designer slash whatever he needs to be at the time. Roman loves to talk about his work and Virgil loves to listen although he understands perhaps one word in five. All that matters is his human is passionate about his job. It seems very important to Roman that Virgil sees where he works. And where he lives, where he spends his time when he is here instead of in the forest, as if Roman can somehow cram Virgil into all of his life. Virgil might not understand why, but that doesn’t matter. The important thing is to keep that smile on Roman’s face. 

As always, Roman is chattering away. Telling him about this and that, a place he visits regularly, a favoured corner to have lunch. And then places that Roman hasn't really spent much time in but knows about. His very own personal tour guide, showing him around this new place. As though Virgil cares. As if there is anything here he would ever be interested in beyond the person beside him. He nods his head when there is a pause in the river of words. Makes the occasional grunt to let Roman know he is listening and simply lets him have his way.

Virgil finds himself doing that a lot lately.

They are almost at the next intersection when Virgil shifts to a sudden stop, every inch of him going stiff, alert.There is a scent in the air, a danger that makes him want to pull Roman behind him. Virgil doesn’t need to look to the side to know that he is opening his mouth, a question forming on lips, something that will only distract. Virgil lifts his free hand, finger on his lips to silence her. A little way down the street stands a male, slight but strongly built, a sneer twisting his features, head dipping up and down a little. No doubt picking up Virgil’s bear but he has never seen him before. Yet. That scent... he knows that scent.

Vampire. 

His power and energy is almost a physical presence on the street, pounding and swirling around them. Virgil can all but taste it and it makes him feel ill. It's been a long time since he's come into contact with another like him. The possibility of such is intoxicating and it would be so easy to simply give into that, to drink deep on the power and for a moment to be the beast of old. He would be lying if he said he wasn't tempted to become what he had once been, just a taste, a final taste. There is still Roman to think about, and it is more than the feeling of shame that comes with the idea of him seeing what he had once been. It is wanting to be better, to be worthy no matter how futile. It is wanting to keep Roman safe.

Even as he thinks that, Roman is moving. He slips out of his grasp in a graceful motion, water trickling between fingers and he has never been able to hold the other against his will. Just like every other aspect of Roman, the physical is impossible to define or pin down. He wants to move and so he does, stepping around him to face this threat head on. Only, Virgil realises with a mounting sense of horror, he doesn't know that this is any kind of danger. As far as his Roman seems to believe, he is simply talking to a neighbour, defusing a situation that is weird but only because Virgil has made it that way. It might even have been enough, the vampire and bear slipping back into tired robes and old roles, except they have each seen the others face. They cannot trust that the other will back down, not when Virgil has his human to think about and the vampire has a chance to drink. 

Not when the vampire has no way of knowing if they will be safe or if Virgil will hunt them down. Better to attack first. In order not to be struck, strike. 

Right in front of him, as though in a play, Virgil sees the vampire reach out, everything around them slowing in time. In his mind's eye, he can see what happens next, can see the pale man’s hand catch at Roman’s shoulder. The way fingers would bite with fierce hunger into skin leaving bruises - if there is any blood remaining tomorrow. Virgil can hear the startled gasp as he is spun around, drawn close and the way their bodies would dance before Roman is bent over or pushed against a wall. Teeth teasing at tender flesh and the final jerk as they break skin, how hands would grip tighter still. He's seen countless vampires feed before, he knows the moves, the fight and the submission of the victim, those moments of pain tinted pleasure. He stops fighting the pale man's grasp, arcs into him and for those few moments it is more than the desperate struggle of a fight, it is something akin to lovers. Then the cards tumble down, the final curtain and Roman is as cold and as dead as the vampire itself. A blink of thunderous applause and he is back at the start.

Fingers touch Roman’s shoulder.

And the world

turns

_**red** _

(Roman is going to be the death of Virgil.)

He comes back to screams of pain and a voice frantically calling his name. He comes back to the rank scent of vampire blood clogged in his nostrils and an ache in his body that means a fight. He comes back to Roman kneeling in front of him, palms open, between him and his target. He's put himself between him and his goal. Into the path of danger and he has never told Roman how deadly that is, how it could ruin him. Virgil never told his human how he could break him without ever meaning to. How humans are so easy to reshape in any image, how he can imagine what he would look like unmade. Virgil’s never told him that he's a monster and made Roman believe it so he can leave for his own safety. Because this was bound to happen sooner or later. It's just some weird twist of fate that he didn't go right through Roman in his quest to end the bastard. All because he was too scared to be honest with him, too selfish and focused on what Roman could give him. 

He's never told Roman how he felt about him - he's never told him how he felt - he’s _never told_ him.

Roman is just standing there and looking at him and there is still so much trust on his features. Like he knows with the utmost certainty that Virgil won’t hurt him. It makes his heart bleed at how wrong he is about him. Why isn’t he running away from Virgil? 

Why isn’t he leaving when the broken and bloody ruin of what they could have been is lying on the ground behind him? 

There is a steady look in Roman’s eyes. A determination that he has come to associate with him. Roman reaches out, motions slow and steady, an action that he has repeated constantly throughout their time together. As though Virgil is some wild animal certainly but the skittish kind, a victim, prey instead of predator. 

Almost as though Roman could be the one to hurt him. It's the same calming motion he uses every time he reaches out to touch Virgil. There is a carefulness in every touch. All his own touches are good for is violence and pain. The vampire makes a noise behind Roman . Still a threat, still a danger and if Virgil can't contain the danger, he can at least get them away from it.

Fight or flight?

Virgil grabs that offered hand, blooded fingers curling in his own clean ones, and together, they run.

(this isn’t a fairy tale, Virgil warns him once.

It isn’t going to have a happy ending.

Being right doesn’t make him feel better.)

No matter how hard Virgil tries, he can’t get his heart under control. It is as wild as the animal inside of him, screaming bloody murder. Virgil wants to go back and finish off that vampire. Wants to keep running and never stop. Fight, fight, fight. Flight, flight, flight. His heart carries on its frantic beat and Virgil doesn’t know how long they run. Only that they do until his lungs are on fire. Until the shadows of the trees cover them both once more. Until he wants to collapse on the ground. If this is how he is feeling, then how badly must Roman feel? Virgil needs to pause, to breathe.

He needs a moment when there is none on offer but the fact that they have made it back to the woods is something.

Virgil is drowning. In everything. The scent of that vampire still curls around them both. Endlessly chasing them and that alone would have driven him mad. But the memories of what had just happened haunts him, pressing up against his mind and he knows it won’t fade any time soon. It is too raw, too vibrant and no matter how much time passes, at this moment it feels as if that vampire will always be there. A tiny part of him thinks maybe not, maybe like every other wound in his life this one would eventually heal. But the wound could have been so much worse, it could have been losing Roman and that could never have healed. Even the woods are tarnished by the smell and where there should be peace there is panic.

Roman touches, fingers smudging against drying blood and Virgil can't help but flinch. It is a soft touch but it is no less painful for that. He stinks of vampire, of that never future and his bear rebels, precious control snapping clean in half. In one graceful motion Virgil is spinning, the flinch and fear replaced by determination, pressing him back. They are almost dancing, forcing Roman against the tree, legs between Roman’s own. 

Even now, when the monster is out and in control for the first time, he isn't struggling or showing fear. Roman trusts the monster. He trusts something as wicked as that man who wanted to drain him dry, snarl rattling through his chest and up and out.

Breath is ragged, Virgil’s head dipping as he takes in that scent which is still tinted vampire. No. No. He cannot let this pass, cannot run the risk that another might show up and think they can just take and take and take. The world needs to know Roman is protected, taken, safe, whatever the term they want to use. _He_ needs to know that he is Virgil’s because otherwise he is hopelessly Roman’s without any end. Virgil cannot be his if it is not equal and even. 

The bear monster has all manner of ideas on how to fix this. 

Virgil cannot agree with most of them. Not here, in the wild, with no choice involved and it is a strain to pull back a fraction of control. To stop his hands and legs moving independently of his wants, to tell the monster no. He might have kept it caged all these years, just as he was kept caged but he has never refused its wants before. Roman is more important. 

The bear monster roars angrily in his head, and Roman is important, they agree he is important. Therefore, he needs to be theirs. Roman needs to not smell of that vampire and its claim. The scent is enough to drive Virgil mad and he presses forward. All but rubbing himself on Roman, consumed by need, need, need. It isn’t as good as some of the ideas from his bear side, but it rubs away the scent of death and replaces it with Virgil’s own. It settles him. Heaven help him, but it settles Virgil as he _marks_ Roman. Cheeks are flushed red, ashamed but now that he has started, Virgil finds he cannot stop. He simply holds Virgil. It makes him want to scream, yell and tell Roman to stop him but he is a prisoner in his own body. The bear monster is in charge. It is taking everything Virgil is to just do this, filling the air with his scent and ensuring that if anything else comes along, it will know Roman is already claimed. 

Virgil tries to ignore the fear that a claim like this might not be enough, that they might just ignore it because it will just make the monster more vicious, more out of control. All he can do is hold on for the ride and stop himself from doing anything worse.

(Roman’s hands touch his skin and it feels like coming home.)

He did it for him. Virgil has just gotten himself under some fragile control and then Roman cracks him back open with a few delicate words. The animalistic nature of Virgil or the fact vampires are real doesn’t seem to make Roman pause. It doesn’t make him doubt or ask any of the questions Virgil can see bubbling away in those beautiful brown eyes. All Roman seems to care about is explaining why he did what he did. Put himself in the path of an oncoming storm unheeding of the danger because Roman believed he was worth it, because he didn't want Virgil to have another's life blood on his hands. 

_What is one more?_

He wants to say the words aloud, what is one more tiny tick on that side for him, one more life taken by his hand. What is one more sin for a soul that is already drenched in them? Not that Roman knows his sins, he looks at him and sees - Virgil has never understood what he saw when he looked at him, only that Roman is always looking and somehow, he is always passing his tests. 

He doesn't want Virgil to kill for him. 

The idea is so funny, Virgil has to drown that urge to laugh at the absurdity. He doesn’t know what is that makes him want to laugh so much - that Roman thinks he has never killed before or that Roman thinks he shouldn’t have that burden, when his main role in life is to do just that. To be the killer, to do the dirty jobs so other people don't have to. A strange wheezing sound fills the clearing, Virgil tensing for a moment in case it is a threat. It takes him a few seconds to realise the noise is coming from him and a few more to understand he is laughing.

It carries on bubbling out of him, a poisonous spurt of noise that refuses to be silenced.

Virgil waits for the punchline, for him to reveal the price and there is always a price. Always. Roman’s played the long game but he can't take this anymore, dancing around the topic, always on edge because nobody is kind. Not without reason. Without cause. Roman closes the distance between them and for once he is silent, letting him have this although there is concern on his face. Dimily, Virgil is aware he is still laughing and that it isn't healthy. There is a small part of him separate from that laugh, from waiting and that part looks at Roman. 

Maybe, for the first time ever, he really, really looks at him. Looks at what Roman has actually done and not done instead of what he expects the human to do. Looks at his words and his actions over everyone else. Looks at his Roman, his knight, his sun, his, his, his and it's a roaring refrain that is glorious.

Gradually, the truth dawns. Roman really doesn't want him to kill for him. Roman isn't just saying that... he isn't wearing a mask and hiding what he wants in fair words... he... he...

Roman is releasing him from chains he doesn't know he wears, invisible cuffs springing open at the words. Virgil feels light, so dizzyingly light for the first time in longer than he knows. The world is suddenly light, a pressure off his shoulders as he struggles to bring in enough air, as though he is up high and the oxygen has grown thin. Legs tremble, now made out of jelly and they fold up under him without the chains holding him in place. He cannot stand but Roman is right here with him, sinking to the ground as he lets himself collapse. His arms wrap around Virgil with fingers gently threading through his hair as they half sit, half lie in the forest and all Virgil can do is focus on breathing. And ignore the strange stinging sensation in the corner of his eye. He doesn't know how long they remain there, new thoughts and ideas pooling around them, Virgil finally allowing new wishes, new wants to take root. A brave new world indeed.

“I want to live for you.” 

(and this bed was just right.)

_~fin~_


End file.
